Ellie Barrett must take her vitamins faithfully, which is a good thing when you hear the schedule she follows as a dancer and choreographer.

"I spend a lot of time on the road," she admits, adding she's on the faculty of Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida School of the Arts in Palatka and The School of Performing Arts in Orlando, as well as teaching at the Douglas Anderson School of the Arts in Jacksonville and The Dance Company in St. Augustine.

She also has taught for and continues to teach for Dance Olympus/Dance America, Florida Dance Masters, Florida Dance Association and Chicago National Association of Dance Masters. Oh, and don't forget she's worked for Walt Disney World's arts program, Rollins College and Valencia Community College, where she started the dance program.

You don't doubt her when she says, "I sleep really well at night."

She must be sleeping even better these days since being chosen to choreograph a dance scene involving Salma Hayek and Jared Leto for the "Lonely Hearts" movie currently being filmed in the area. The independent production stars John Travolta and James Gandolfini in addition to Hayek and Leto.

"It's salsa and swing. The dining hall of Flagler College is standing in for a 1949 bar and there's a big band. There are a barrel of extras and the leads in the scene," Barrett notes, adding there will be about 50 dancing extras.

She's full of praise for Hayek. "She's brilliant. What a nice lady."

She also worked with Jared Leto, an actor and musician. "He's going to be huge."

"It's really interesting. They're so good, so focused. They just do such good work," she says.

Telling of how she got the job, Barrett says, "Well, there really aren't any accidents."

She was on a flight to New York where she was scheduled to teach and was seated next to two men who were discussing a script. When she saw the name Wantaugh, New York, she just had to speak. She'd grown up in the Long Island community and knew only a native would know of the small town of Wantaugh.

The men were writer-director Todd Robinson and assistant director Jeff Austin and the movie was "Lonely Hearts." It turned out Robinson had graduated from Adelphi University in dance and both had taken dance classes from Adelphi's Norman Walker, "one of the legends." When he found out she was a dancer and choreographer, Robinson said he'd hire her for the picture. Oh, sure, she thought.

But, hire her he did.

"The circumstances were just too bizarre. What are the chances we'd be flying together?" asks the brown-haired dancer with a smile.

She tells the story while sitting on a couch in a lounge at FloArts, her legs pulled up and around with the agility a 20-year-old would envy. Barrett is talking about what she loves best -- dancing. Well, maybe after her husband, Kenneth Barrett Jr., a photographic artist and educator who has taught at Flagler College since 1987.

This is a big time in both their professional lives. His latest one-man photographic exhibit opened earlier this week at the Jack Mitchell Gallery in the Thrasher-Horne Center on the Orange Park campus of St. Johns River Community College. Entitled "Time Frames," it blends his journalism background with his own artistic style, and will run for two months.

"It's wonderful he's having this recognition," she says.

Although from New York, Barrett can almost qualify as a native Floridian. Her father moved the family to the Orlando area pre-Disney World. Her first job out of high school was in St. Augustine appearing in "Cross And Sword." ("$55 a week and a non-air conditioned apartment somewhere on Cordova Street.")

In those days she wanted to be an actress and eventually headed for the Boston Conservatory, leaving to appear in the first national tour of "Jesus Christ, Superstar." ("I played Mary Magdalene.") Eventually, she realized she wanted to "get that piece of paper" and went to the University of South Florida for her bachelor of arts degree.

After that, it was a round of jobs as varied as the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus and the renowned Ina Hahn Modern Dance Company and Boston Dance Company. She has choreographed for Walt Disney World, Sea World and convention shows for Tupperware Convention of America.

Barrett has been selected for inclusion in the 2002-2004 Florida Artists' Residency Directory by the state's Division of Cultural Affairs. In 2002 and 2004, her students selected her for the "Who's Who Among America's Teachers" publication.

In 2002 she was in Seoul, South Korea, choreographing "Urinetown, The Musical" and "Rent" for the Seensee Musical Theatre Company. She's also choreographed for Hyundai Corporation, Lotte World Theme Park and Everland Theme Park in Seoul.

Watch her move on the wooden dance floor at FloArts with two of her male students, and you can see her mastery of her art. The dancers are as supple as an ocean wave and their connection to the joyful music is apparent.

"I love to teach," says Barrett of her work. "There's a lot of traveling, but that's the gypsy in me. I've always been a gypsy."

 

Local dancer, formerly of Cuba Ballet, leads Hayek

For Luis Alberto Abella, the movie "Lonely Hearts" may be the start of a career. Choreographer Ellie Barrett has hired the former National Ballet of Cuba dancer as her official assistant. He's dancing with star Salma Hayek as part of the job.

"He'll be demonstrating what the guy is supposed to do. I don't lead women," said Barrett, referring to a salsa and swing dance number in the movie. She's pleased with the results of a recent practice.

"They were smokin'. Really burning the floor."

The receptionist at the Dance Company on Anastasia Island, where Barrett teaches, recommended Abella, who has only been in the area a few months.

Barrett has been teaching at the school for about 10 years and says the students there impress her. "They¹re brilliant," she said.

Other Dance Company teachers involved in the film project are Nikki Russo, Anna Courter and Ximena Alvarez.